"You played it with great seriousness. And it is not such an uncommon game. Do you know Ibsen's poem — <blockquote> To live it to do battle with trol… - Robertson Davies

I shall be as brief as I can, for it is not by piling up detail that I hope to achieve my picture, but by putting the emphasis where I think it belongs.

We tend to think human knowledge as progressive; because we know more and more, our parents and grandparents are back numbers. But a contrary theory is possible - that we simply recognize different things at different times and in different ways.

My own idea is that when He comes again it will be to continue his ministry as an old man. I am an old man and my life has been spent as a soldier of Christ, and I tell you that the older I grow the less Christ's teachings says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems to never have known. Everybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forth with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years! I think after forty we should recognize Chirst politely but turn for our comfort and guidance to God the Father, who knows the good and evil of life, and to the Holy Ghost, who posses a widsom beyond that of the incarnated Christ. After all, we worship a Trinigty, of which Christ is but one Person. I think when He comes again it will be to declare the unity of the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit. And then perhaps we shall make some sense of this life of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces. Who can tell? — we might even make it bearable for everybody.